


let you take every line i've got

by Plooby



Series: and as we fall we sing [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Anal Sex, M/M, Oral Sex, Taerahel Surana, bless his heart, imagination adventures about dragon age ocs, misuse of healing magic to eliminate the refractory period, taerahel "look EXTREMELY technically i'm not a blood mage" surana, taerahel "the rules are for people who aren't as smart as i am" surana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:02:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24758236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plooby/pseuds/Plooby
Summary: Taerahel Surana takes Zevran up on an offer of a massage. It's been a long week, after all.
Relationships: Zevran Arainai/Male Surana
Series: and as we fall we sing [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790470
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	let you take every line i've got

It was an unfortunate fact of life that there was really no graceful way to enter a tent. Taerahel settled for moving from his awkward crouch through the entrance to a seated position as soon as possible, grateful that he'd already gone through the motions of spreading out the thin blanket that made up its base. Zevran settled the flap shut behind them and came to kneel in front of him soon after. Even in the dim glow of the fire through canvas walls, it was still possible to see that there was a deeply self-satisfied smirk on his lips, and well there might be, Taerahel supposed. That didn't stop his own smile in the least, nor him from pushing forward eagerly into Zevran's arms, wrapping his own around Zevran's neck and meeting his mouth. 

Being kissed was a curious sensation: pleasant, certainly, in its dry and delicate beginnings, and then he was struggling to keep up as it opened into something wet and slippery that started to feel a bit unnatural. Zevran took his time, though, and it was time that could be spent adjusting, finding the way to enjoy noticing that he was being tasted and explored, and to experiment with doing the same in return. And the fact that it all happened while clasped in Zevran's arms, pressed to the worked leather that still covered his chest, did a great deal to recommend the experience. 

Eventually Zevran paused to draw back just enough to look at him, pushing a spill of hair out of Taerahel's eyes and still looking entirely pleased with himself. Taerahel turned his head into Zevran's hand, liking the touch of leather on his cheek, wanting skin more. 

"You know I've never done this before?" he asked his voice low, peering up at Zevran's eyes with them so close to one another. Zevran looked at him with eyebrows raised, in as much amusement as curiosity. 

"You've never before defeated an assassin sent to slay you, spared his life for some reason, allowed him to join your traveling company, and then invited him to your bed? Ah, this is excellent news. I would hate to think that I was not unique." 

"Not that," Taerahel said, lips pressed tight around it to keep from laughing, and then he reconsidered. "Well, it's true that I've never done that before, either. But I meant -- " He took a slight breath, and lifted his chin. "Invited anyone to my bed. Or been invited, for that matter." 

That quieted Zevran into a telling moment of stillness, although his expression now betrayed nothing readable at all. "Ah," he said, after only a hair too long. "Then, no. I did not know that." His stillness persisted only a second longer, and then his hand was moving again, sliding gloved fingertips slowly down the pronounced line of Taerahel's cheekbone and over to underline his lips, even as Zevran's own curved again a bit. "But how can such a thing be possible? For such a rare beauty as yourself to come before me still untouched? I do recall the templars of the Circle in Antiva were quite repressive; could those in the Fereldan Circle have been so monstrous as to prevent you from being worshipped as you so richly deserve?" 

Taerahel restrained himself to only slightly rolling his eyes, although his smile this time would not be denied. "No, not at all. Actually, they were quite permissive about that sort of thing in our Circle. Even I heard about all sorts of trysts and petty melodramas -- some days in spring you couldn't find one scroll in the library without tripping over three couples necking." 

"I think I would very quickly lose interest in the scroll," Zevran said, now openly grinning at him. Taerahel tightened his own twitching mouth again. 

"I'm certain, and that is where we differ." He paused to consider even as Zevran laughed. "It was merely a lack of interest, and of opportunity. I wasn't exactly popular in the tower." Zevran tilted his head, and Taerahel smirked, daritng his eyes away. "Enchanters like to make much of how humans and elves are treated equally in the Circles of Magi, and I suppose purely in the letter of things, it's true: they don't do anything so absurd as carve off an alienage from the apprentice quarters, or tell us to mend the humans' robes, or anything like that. But in practice, it's a very different matter, as I'm sure you can imagine. The most mediocre human mages have a mysterious way of advancing past the most gifted elven ones, and though most of us learn better than to stand up too tall in the first place, I never had the knack for it. Suffice it to say, the lack-witted noble brats in my cohort -- the ones whose parents will buy them out to comfortable patronages should they survive their Harrowings -- were not well pleased to find not only were they expected to mingle with a knife-ear from the gutter, but that I could cast rings around any of them, and was the First Enchanter's favorite." Zevran nodded, not quite smiling, and Taerahel tossed his head with a shrug. "The rest either felt the same, or were anxious to follow their lead, and curry their favor. Jowan was the closest thing I ever had to a friend, and you know how that ended up. Not to mention that I don't think he was interested in me that way -- and even if he had been, I wouldn't have been interested in him." He paused another moment, and then met Zevran's eyes again, his lips curving now without the bitterness of before. "I've never really been interested in anyone, before I met you." 

Zevran smiled back, lightly stroking his cheek -- although some measure of that strange stillness seemed to have returned behind his eyes. "That sounded very like a compliment. Should I take it as such?" 

"Well, most people aren't very interesting," Taerahel said with another shrug, making him laugh again. "But yes, even so." He hesitated for another moment, longer this time, and then searched Zevran's eyes, forgetting in the process to guard his expression quite so closely. "Is it... all right? That I haven't? You seemed quite thrown for a moment." 

That seemed to startle Zevran in itself -- a flicker of a faintly caught look crossing his eyes, before he recovered himself and laughed. "Only because it was unexpected, truly. As I said, I would have assumed you needed that staff of yours most for beating away amorous pursuers." Taerahel laughed as well, unable to help himself this time, and then Zevran's expression gentled a bit. "...I may also have wondered whether you're certain about this yourself. Perhaps you would prefer to mark the occasion with such extravagant luxuries as a proper bed?" 

"I don't know when next I'll see a proper bed," Taerahel said, amused, and drew himself up pointedly closer by his arms around Zevran's neck, resting against the slope of Zevran's thighs. "And I haven't the patience to find out. I assure you, I'm _very_ certain, if you still want to." After a second's pause, he tried touching his lips to Zevran's once himself, lightly, and smiled when he felt them answer. When he drew back, it was just enough to speak with his breath still touching their skin. " _I _want to. I like you, and I want you. I want to know what it feels like when you touch me. That's what matters to me."__

____

A breath like a laugh twitched in Zevran's chest, and then he was kissing Taerahel again, more thoroughly; his tongue plunged the depths of Taerahel's mouth in a way that this time was more familiar, and had begun to make heat curl lazily through him. "My dear Warden," he murmured near Taerahel's ear, when he would finally release his mouth on a warm wet sound, "I needed far less convincing than that." On Taerahel's own breath of a laugh, he drew back to arm's length at last, with a far more pleasantly wicked smile. "In that case, would you be so kind as to take off that robe of yours for me, so I need not make a fool of myself trying to learn its secrets?" 

____

"Whatever happened to staring off my skirts?" Taerahel sniffed, with an attempt at disdain easily belied by the tugging of his mouth, not to mention how he immediately moved back to begin working the clasps. Zevran laughed more whole-heartedly this time. 

____

"Alas, that dancer's costume was made of far less stern stuff than your Circle's robes, I'm afraid." He appeared to think a moment, even as Taerahel set aside the unbuckled corsetry from around his waist. "But in a manner of speaking, would you not say I've achieved it anyway?" 

____

Rather than dignify that with a response beyond a snort, Taerahel twisted around to push out of his footwear and hike up his loose robes, stripping them at last up over his head. When he settled back into place, mostly naked, he paused to smooth his hair back into place to cover a moment's self-consciousness, finding himself not quite able to look to see where Zevran was looking. So it took him by surprise when he reached for his smallclothes, meaning to finish the job, and found Zevran's hands covering his own. 

____

"This part is far more familiar," Zevran said, and somehow his curving mouth had drawn near again, his body arched forward on his knees over where Taerahel's reclined. "Please, allow me." 

____

Taerahel moved his hands obligingly aside to let Zevran's replace them, smiling back with his eyelashes lowered almost to his cheeks. It freed him to brace his weight on his palms and lift his hips, to allow the fabric to slide down under him and off his legs and away, shivering a bit when the leather gloving Zevran's fingers brushed deliberately over the skin at his hips. Then he was entirely bare, his prick already thickening to hardness at the fork of his thighs, but bold enough now to watch Zevran's gaze linger over him with unmistakable greed. 

____

At last Zevran reached for him again, touching the base of Taerahel's throat and smoothing down the center of his thin, bone-pale chest with a soft _tsk_ of a sound. "How truly criminal," he said, his hand sliding down to where it made Taerahel shiver again and bite his lip, "to conceal such loveliness under that shapeless sack you wear." 

____

Taerahel raised his eyebrow, trying for dryness enough to disguise the way his smile parted around his breath. "You'd prefer I cast in the nude?" 

____

"Ah, now that _would_ be exciting!" Zevran's thumb skimmed around the side of Taerahel's hip again, even as he laughed. "There should be no need for a mage to armor himself as the rest of us do anyway, hmm? Perhaps you should consider the merits of distraction, instead." Taerahel couldn't help laughing himself, and Zevran kissed him again once and then was drawing back, leaving him room. "But we can discuss this later. For now, please, make yourself comfortable and lie face-down. I suggest reclining on a blanket you will not be sorry to see stained with oil." 

____

Taerahel blinked for a moment -- he couldn't claim any experience but that all seemed a bit on the presumptive side, not to mention oddly businesslike -- and then awareness dawned on him slowly, of the slightly evil light in Zevran's eye, and the evening's previous conversation. "...You're actually going to make me wait through that massage, aren't you?" 

____

It was Zevran's turn to roll his eyes, although there was definitely an unrepentant grin tugging at the edges of his expression. "Yes, what a terrible hardship to be asked to endure." When Taerahel was unmoved, however, Zevran smiled back into his eyes, with only a touch more sincerity. "I did mean it when I said you looked weary. The business with your former friend was... trying, was it not? Please, do me the honor of allowing me to help put you at ease." 

____

He surely could not have more delicately made it plain that he had noticed how much it had affected Taerahel, seeing Jowan again, but even that much still gave Taerahel pause. He was still sorting it out in his mind, and had been throughout their journey to find the scholar in Denerim so far: how to feel about it all, and what to take away. In the wake of his ejection from the Circle he had been so consumed with the thought of how he had been used, how he had been _betrayed_ \-- and, if he were honest with himself now, the blood magic that had been Jowan's crime and escape. Was some part of his simmering anger fed all along by rank jealousy and outraged pride, that this was something in which Jowan seemed to have bested him -- a forbidden path to being stronger and better that he had left on the table himself, but his peer and so-called friend had not foresworn? Certainly it was. He couldn't see the sense in denying that, at least to himself. It had all tangled together: the want for power, the growing boldness of his cynicism, the determination that he would never be turned on or taken advantage of again without retribution. 

____

But then Jowan, in that prison cell and then later in the arl's great hall, had been so different from what he would have expected to see, if he'd ever truly expected to see Jowan again. He had been so... _pathetic_. No brilliant architect of all Taerahel's misfortunes he, no master manipulator chortling and twirling his mustaches; he was a young man only recently old enough to grow any in the first place, and terrified, and miserable, and plainly sorry beyond all reckoning of it for everything he had done. Blood magic had not made him ultimately powerful, nor irredeemably monstrous, so far as Taerahel could see -- at least nowhere near so much as simply wretched. And that had, somehow, managed to call everything back into question that he'd thought he had decided. Was it worth it, after all, to truck with the forbidden and the powerful, if all it did was make you beholden once more to forces beyond your control, and lead you into profoundly stupid acts of arrogance and desperation that you could not then take back? Was anyone who hurt you really out to destroy you, for that matter, or were they mostly just stupid and selfish, and telling themselves excuses for what they thought was best for them? 

____

It had shaken him: enough that when he had let Jowan send him into the Fade, and the demon had attempted to tempt him too, with everything he had thought he'd wanted... he'd destroyed her instead, and somehow not even found it any great hardship. Alistair had been angry about the blood magic, of course, and he honestly had regretted that and Isolde's death both to some degree, but he couldn't bring himself to regret that he'd accepted the help, even now. Or even that he'd wound up speaking up on Jowan's behalf. What was the point of anger held so tightly that its edges cut your own clenched fist? There were other things he cared for. Other things he'd been surprised to find he wanted more. 

____

To which point, he could already see a flicker of regret in Zevran's eyes that he'd even brought it up. Taerahel pushed all that aside and made a show of being put upon instead, sighing and pushing up on his hands as he turned his mind back to much more agreeable present matters. 

____

"Putting me at my ease could take a number of different forms, you know," he said in nearly a grumble, but even as Zevran laughed again, he moved to do as he'd been asked. It took only a moment to root another threadbare blanket out of his meager heap of belongings and spread it out, before lying down on his stomach with arms folded beneath his head. Zevran was rustling around himself behind and above him all the while: fabric sliding against skin, liquid sloshing, then wet sounds of its being spread. 

____

Then a moment later, Zevran's hands -- finally free of their gloves, and bare skin to skin -- pressed into his upper back, into the narrow spaces between the inner curves of his shoulderblades and his spine. They were slick with some skin-warmed oil, and they pushed with firm, careful certainty into the heart of muscles that Taerahel'd had no idea were knotted, sliding along the lines of their pressure to scatter tension in every direction behind them, like a flock of startled birds. Taerahel hissed in an involuntary breath, and then let it out in a soft, heartfelt groan, muffled in the skin of his own upper arm. 

____

"All right, I take it back, you can do that absolutely as long as you like," he said all in a rush along one breath, as Zevran worked his way downward and out onto the planes of his lower back. An insufferably smug chuckle, however, was his only reply. 

____

He very quickly lost track of how long it had been going on: hours, it seemed like, or maybe barely seconds, never long enough but so long that it seemed like the only thing that had ever happened in his life. Zevran's hands moved over his muscles in smooth, powerful strokes, releasing tightness from them, drawing the occasional faint gasp of sound from Taerahel's lips. All the tension in every part of him seemed to fade along with it, not just that in his back; he was quickly loose and warm and floating all throughout his body, his skin alert and sensitive under Zevran's fingers, but his mind adrift and with no particular sense of anything at all. 

____

Gradually, though, that warmth began to change shape, to allow other things in as well: the heat in his prick pinned under him returning, and then redoubling, his relaxation letting his arousal grow with pulsing steadiness now that there was no uncertainty or nerves to intrude. The slipperiness of the oil between Zevran's hands and him seemed in time as much suggestive as it was practical, the ease of their sliding on his prickling skin obscene. Mind untethered, he found himself imagining what might come next in the darkness behind his eyes: those slick hands sliding under him, wrapping and stroking him, one lifting his hips into the reach of the hot sliding other while Zevran's chest pressed to his back, Zevran's voice breathed a laugh into his ear at his squirming eagerness... 

____

He had already worked himself up enough that when Zevran's hands wandered past the base of his back, all the way down to cup and squeeze the scant curves of his rear, his breath shivered out of him on a small wavering sound and his hips jutted down into the blanket under him. By the time those hands were gripping around the backs of his thighs, stroking oily thumbs down between them at a perilously high tide-mark on their inner sides, he was practically writhing, his face hot on his arm and his breath shaking. Then they were curled around his hips, making him gasp with their nearness, and there was hot breath on the back of his neck followed by warm wet lips: Zevran kissing him there, with the weight of his body just close enough to feel. 

____

"Are you ready for me to have you, then?" Zevran murmured into his ear, and he nodded hard, gulping breath, twisting under Zevran just to feel him. Zevran's chuckle was warm, and not at all unkind. "Turn over, if you please. Lie on your back." 

____

He moved back to give room, and Taerahel did as he said again, rolling himself over in a scramble of panting haste. He could see at once why Zevran had suggested a blanket he wouldn't mind spoiling; the feeling of it sticking to his oil-smeared back was at first unpleasant, and then quickly of no consequence whatsoever. Zevran battened on him, kissing him, stretching out on top of him and letting a knee fall between his sprawling thighs so that he couldn't possibly resist the urge to rub himself up against it. The sensation of the soft, smooth leather covering Zevran's thigh, warmed by Zevran's skin, dragging along the length of his own bare cock was enough to make him shudder and gasp out a thin sound, clutching at Zevran's sides. Which, he realized with a touch of disgruntlement marring all his heat, were also still _irritatingly_ well-protected. 

____

"Are you planning to -- actually get out of your armor, at any point?" he managed to say into Zevran's ear with only a small hitch of breath in the middle, although his voice was still thick with more desire than the withering tone he might have intended. "I may not have much experience, but I understand that's a necessary -- " 

____

Zevran interrupted him with another kiss there, rudely, although Taerahel supposed he probably deserved that. "Your wish is my command, as they say," Zevran said when he withdrew, beaming, and rather more grandly than the situation really warranted. But at least then he drew himself up on his knees again (though the loss of his thigh between Taerahel's was a wrench), and went to work, undoing straps and doing away with hardened-leather fittings from around himself with remarkable efficiency. Tossing off the sleeveless singlet from underneath left him down to close leather breeches, and when he turned to set it aside Taerahel pushed up heavy-breathed on one elbow to reach for Zevran's back, tracing the swirling decorative lines of tattoos there. He had glimpsed them before from time to time, but the fascination of having them to touch was able to distract him even now, if only for a moment. Zevran glanced back at him, and smiled, stretching back over him both to bring their heat close again, and make it much easier for Taerahel to reach. Taerahel took immediate, hungry advantage, smoothing both palms over broad swathes of Zevran's back, as much to explore just its warm scarred skin and muscle as its markings. 

____

"May I ask you one other thing?" Zevran murmured, propped on his elbows over Taerahel with Taerahel's arms around him, his gaze dark on Taerahel's. Taerahel nodded, not quite trusting himself to speak again, and Zevran gave him a fleeting smile, his voice when he spoke again just as dark and caressing as his eyes. "I would like you to remember that the only purpose of this endeavor is for you to feel intense and exquisite pleasure. As such, if at any moment you find yourself in discomfort, or in distress, or even simply unsatisfied -- there would be no purpose in pushing yourself to endure." He toyed with the dark tumble of Taerahel's hair on the blanket, smiling slightly. "You are a remarkably stubborn man, I'm sure you know, and strong of will, and I've had much cause to admire these traits in you. But to apply them to merely obliging what should be driving you beyond your senses -- that would be entirely counter to what I wish for you in this." Even as Taerahel watched him, taking all that in, he smiled a bit wider and leaned in to brush his lips under Taerahel's jaw. "So please, I beg of you. Should anything fail to meet your expectations, alert me. We need not even call a halt, if you do -- perhaps merely correct course." 

____

Zevran's tone stayed light throughout, but every aspect of the moment said a serious answer was called for. Taerahel turned his head into the touch of Zevran's, his own lips brushing along Zevran's cheekbone. "I will," he said, quietly. "I'll remember." 

____

"Then I will be grateful," Zevran said into his skin, with a curious warmth Taerahel was sure he wasn't imagining. And then Zevran had drawn back to look at him, and he was only all wicked mischief again, stray hair beginning to pull artfully from beneath his braids. "In that case, I would very much like to suck you off now. Do you agree?" 

____

The little laugh that startled out of Taerahel was as much shivering, gasping breath as real amusement .His voice told on him by breaking up under every word: "I can only think of a few things I'd like as much." 

____

"A fascinating topic for later discussion," Zevran said, still smirking; but at least he did it while he was crawling back between Taerahel's legs, his mouth coming to skim low to Taerahel's belly the further down it moved. 

____

Taerahel's prick throbbed when Zevran's breath touched it, and his head arched back into the blanket, breath fast through his open mouth. Then Zevran's hand -- still tantalizingly slick -- wrapped around its base, and Zevran's tongue touched under his cock-head in a single hot, wet point of pressure. Taerahel gasped hard, loudly, his chest heaving with it. His thighs spread apart unconsciously, inviting, begging. Zevran's other arm slid under his thigh, curling a hand around to stroke his hip in lines of cooling oil, and Zevran's tongue traced, teased, circled slow patterns over skin that seemed aflame. Those few inches felt suddenly like the only part of Taerahel that existed and mattered, the only thing that was anything at all. Zevran's breath cooled the wet lines his tongue trailed behind it, then warmed them, the hand at the base just barely moving in a smooth just-too-light squeeze. It was all so slow, so deliberate, and Taerahel's head burned and spun and swam with it, his blood sang through him. He thought at any moment he would lose his grip and go spinning off the skin of the world, unmade into a perfect nothing. 

____

Then Zevran's lips touched to his tip, and then opened to it, revealing a new furnace of slick wet heat to his flesh and then sinking it down around him by torturously gradual degrees. Taerahel hitched breath and stuttered a short, sharp cry, his head twisting restlessly against the blanket under him, and he held the rest of him as still as he could while he shuddered his way through Zevran's enclosing of him, into sensation that felt as though it would have him burst out of his skin. _Pleasure_ , yes, there was no question that goal had already been achieved; he felt like he had gone entirely through the edge of everything he knew into some other unsuspected space, discovering an entirely new dimension of what he had always understood of his own body. Dimly, he was aware of a slight but very real electric crackling just along the surface of his skin, where the magic that lay under it had woken to restless life with the strength of his arousal. He should probably be a bit careful about that. He couldn't imagine how he could be careful about anything at all. 

____

Zevran's tongue laved lazy spirals around him, Zevran's mouth tightened slipping-wet around him, and as soon as he was fully seated Zevran's head began to rise and dip again around him, to keep that warm perfection in stimulating motion. Taerahel lay shaken by the force of his own breath and just experiencing it, helpless to do more. At some nameless point he reached for Zevran with a slightly trembling hand, stroked the back of his head and his upper nape one wondering time with his fingertips, and then Zevran made a soft hum of pleasure around him that had Taerahel's hand falling away at once, as the muscles of his thighs tightened and a hot dizzy breath hissed into him. 

____

He would come to suppose later, in retrospect, that he really had not been able to bear that first time for very long at all and that probably ought to be embarrassing, but in the moment there was no room in him for anything beyond pleasure. Warmth began to flood out in tingles to his extremities and pool deep in his bollocks and cock, a leaden heaviness that made the gasps of his breath harder and his focus close down to a singularity. "I'm going to come," he managed to gasp out somehow in one quick soft rush, nothing really more than wet whispering breath. He wasn't entirely sure how he expected Zevran to respond, inasmuch as he was thinking of it at all, but it seemed like it should be noted. It would, after all, occur in Zevran's mouth if he continued -- a thought that in itself made the inevitability of the event all the more stark. 

____

For his part, though, Zevran seemed entirely unperturbed at the prospect. In fact, he sank Taerahel deeper into his mouth than ever, to where his lips pressed up against the curl of his own hand and they pushed together each on its own rhythm -- and then he _sucked_ , tightening his mouth hard around all of Taerahel's prick that it could hold, the whole length of his tongue rubbing in a sudden fast hard rhythm up and down along his tip and underside. 

____

It was magnificent; it was unsurvivable. Taerahel choked a cry loud enough to, what with a tent's flimsiness, surely leave no doubt in the mind of anyone still awake in the camp of what was going on in here tonight, and his hips tried against his will to surge against the careful restraint of Zevran's hand. Zevran drew on him, bobbed his head, and Taerahel's awareness of himself and the moment burst into a searing white blankness that was so good it left him whimpering his breaths, his eyes watering, when he finally fell tumbling back into his skin and the darkness of the tent and the warm, steadying grip of Zevran's hands and slackening mouth. 

____

He lay unmoving, panting, finally opening his eyes only to stare up at the firelit plane of canvas above his head. Zevran's soft mouth and lips teased out a few last hissing twitches from his sensitive flesh, making his eyelids flutter, and then he had slowly and gently withdrawn and let his hand unwrap from around Taerahel's shaft. Zevran's weight shifted between his legs and then around and over him, and Taerahel blinked his eyes open again to stare nakedly into Zevran's face, drinking in urgently even the sight of its pure, supreme self-satisfaction. 

____

"I hope you can forgive my selfishness," Zevran said through a half-lidded smile, stroking Taerahel's chest idly as he lay half-beside and half-over him. "I should have asked if you preferred to hold off for a time; but I couldn't resist the chance to taste you at last." 

____

Taerahel let a smile shape his still-fast breath, his eyes flickering shut a moment and then open again. "I don't think I _could_ have held off," he confessed, making Zevran laugh, his voice still staggering between his breaths. "No forgiveness necessary. And I -- certainly hope there's more to follow." 

____

He was unable to hide any measure of the hopeful eagerness in his own voice, even as spent as he felt right now. At least the hungry, intent way Zevran looked at him was gratifying. "For you, my dear, as much as you wish. Did you have something in particular in mind?" 

____

"Well," Taerahel said softly, and lifted his hand to touch the warm lean muscle of Zevran's belly, exploring with his fingertips the waist of Zevran's breeches. "I think you left out a piece, when you were describing the purpose of all this before. The one that concerns you." 

____

Zevran's smile was all amused pleasure, even as he took Taerahel's other hand from where it lay at his side and pressed its fingers to his lips. "My pleasure was always guaranteed," he purred into them, but the light in his eyes was still keen as before. "That being said, far be it from me to deny you anything you may wish to explore." 

____

He might have expected hesitation, from his tone, but Taerahel allowed himself none. "I want you to have me," he said, almost too quickly. His hand slid down as he did to run the length of the rise in Zevran's breeches, to underscore his point, and he watched avidly the way Zevran's eyes fell heavy-lidded and his lips parted on his breath. "Fuck me. Will you?" 

____

There was another brief second where Zevran seemed curiously still, before he formed his mouth in an opaque smile. "I hate to make you repeat yourself, but -- are you certain?" His lips still brushed Taerahel's fingers as he spoke, his breath very warm. "It is a most agreeable act, of course, but so are many others. I wouldn't want you to think this a journey that must have but one destination." 

____

"You wouldn't say that if you knew how often I've thought of it," Taerahel said, his trembling breath almost a laugh. "Shall I try to count the times the idea of you on top of me, inside me, has brought me off in my hand? I don't think I can." 

____

Zevran reacted to that quite satisfyingly: his eyes fluttering briefly closed and his hips pulsing forward into Taerahel's exploring hand, pushing his grip full and firm. Then he was laughing with no more than breath into Taerahel's fingers and cupped palm -- although still more ruefully than Taerahel might have liked to see. "Much as I regret to say so," he said, "that may be all the more reason to wait, at least a little while." Taerahel frowned at him, and he lifted his eyes with a touch of apology. "I fear you would take less pleasure from the experience than you could, were you to enjoy it so soon after coming. And while I do take pride in my fortitude, alas, I doubt it would endure long enough to bring you off again." 

____

"Oh." Taerahel considered that, and then tipped Zevran a small, game smile. "Well, in that case... just a moment." 

____

Zevran was raising his eyebrows, but Taerahel shut his own eyes before he could see more, sealing out distractions. He retrieved his hand gently from Zevran's lips as well, and relaxed onto his back, breathing deeply as he ran his palm down the plane of his own lower belly. In the dark behind his eyes, all the while, extending all his senses of himself, and then reaching with magic past what they ought to be able to perceive -- the first step of any complicated healing, finding what was out of place from what ought to be, the elements that had shifted away from the body's ordinary equilibrium. There was no sense of warmth in his hand, but he was certain, by a momentary pause in Zevran's breathing, that it had begun to produce its own inner light. 

____

And then he was entirely focused again, reaching, and changing what was off-center: a small laxity, deep inside his lower body, that should have been firm and poised; the chafed, overstimultated sensitivity of his skin along his cock and stones and below; even some humor that he could feel ran too heavily in his blood, changing its character. Delicate things, nothing he could have probably even sensed in another body, but possible to gently manipulate out of sheer familiarity with his own. 

____

With another deep, slow breath, he was able to resolve the last of it, and let the threads of power dissipate, opening his eyes again. Zevran was watching him with great skeptical interest, and he could be sure of the renewed state of himself just by looking back at Zevran, bare to the waist and still hard against the front of his breeches, and feeling his own cock pulse and begin to fill again. 

____

Neither did it escape Zevran's notice. The incredulity on his face built to a peak, and then broke in a helpless laugh. "Now _that_ is a trick," he said, and Taerahel couldn't help beaming, preening under the genuine admiration of his tone in spite of the mild absurdity of the circumstances. "I must confess, I had never imagined that magic was ever applied to such eminently practical purposes." 

____

"Well, my mentor didn't teach me that one, if you were wondering," Taerahel said, shrugging, a bit of a smile still tilting his mouth. "I always liked experimenting. And when you're sixteen and only have the apprentice quarters to yourself for a little while at a time, necessity becomes the mother of invention." 

____

That lost Zevran to laughter for a few seconds longer, with every evidence of complete delight. "You really are a wonder," he said -- again, with a greater depth of warmth in his voice than Taerahel might have expected. "How was I able to make off with such a treasure? I must be cleverer than I thought." 

____

"Is that possible?" Taerahel inquired politely, setting Zevran off once more, and then he had propped up to lie over Taerahel and kiss him, a hungry seeking slide of tongues. In Zevran's mouth Taerahel could still taste traces of something new and salt-strange, something of himself. 

____

"In any case, you really do have quite the gift for making a strong argument," Zevran said almost against Taerahel's lips when he paused, and then pushed up on his knees, to begin to work his breeches open and off his hips. "I feel fortunate that I'm so content to indulge you." 

____

"So do I," Taerahel said, grinning unabashedly now, and once he'd pushed up on his elbows they stripped Zevran out of the rest of his clothing, in a tangle of hands and breath and laughter. 

____

Zevran retrieved the little vial he'd gotten the oil from earlier, before moving back atop Taerahel and between his thighs. He slicked it back across his fingers while Taerahel watched with restless interest, stroking Zevran's thigh, tracing the shape of his stones and cock with curious fingertips until Zevran's breath shivered. There was no inch of Zevran's body he took for granted, that he wasn't hungry to learn. He liked Zevran's cock very much already: it was slender and attractively-shaped and a sensible size, well fit to his hand, and its warm and smooth weight was pleasant to the touch, as were Zevran's shivering breath and heavy-lidded eyes when he touched it. When Zevran brought his own hand down to slick it with the oil, Taerahel joined in the process eagerly, his hand and Zevran's working over him in a messy bumping tandem. It drew a faint groan out of Zevran, and a smile shaped his pant of breath as he let himself down over Taerahel, bracing on one arm to kiss him again. And then he urged Taerahel's thighs up toward his own chest with his other hand, and then dropped it back to grip his shaft where Taerahel's fingers still lingered, to guide it forward. 

____

The brush of Zevran's cock-head against Taerahel was at first both aimless and deliberate, just nudging against the skin and smearing it with oil around the edges of the furled muscle. The skin was very sensitive still even in spite of his efforts, though now not unpleasantly so, and Taerahel gasped and twitched, first tensing and then melting against it. His cock throbbed with new eagerness, impatient for more; his heart was already beginning to race again just with the excitement of the idea, the anticipation of what would happen, the want to _know_ it. Rather than push forward, though, for a moment Zevran only skimmed his fingers down to his own tip and then off it, spreading the oil even further around Taerahel's opening with delicate fingertips. Little flares of nerves went off under Taerahel's skin, deepening where the tip of one finger pushed teasingly at him, just into him. He bit his lip and then let it go so that his mouth parted, a soft moan under his breath slipping out from within. 

____

"Breathe deeply, and relax," Zevran murmured somewhere above him, husky and warm, and now his hand had withdrawn again, now there was pressure at the tip of his cock again and it was pressing, insisting, parting. "Relax," and Taerahel was still, breathing, as it breached him, sank into him, spread him around its weight. It was warm, slick, intrusive, setting off heat in his mind and his body, and he focused, and strove to control himself, to relax. He had barely begun to do so before Zevran had paused again, his breath heavy but cock only just inside. "You remember what I asked you? Is it what you hoped?" 

____

" _Yes,_ " Taerahel hissed, and Zevran huffed a laugh under his breath at the fine edge of irritation on his voice. At least he soothed that indignity, however, by beginning again to push deeper. 

____

Zevran moved into him very slowly, as he concentrated on accepting and letting it happen, his body gently pressed open by the slightest degrees around insistent firm warmth. He could not seem to count the time before all at once it _had_ happened, it was done, and Zevran was in him, pressed up against him, his stones nestled against Taerahel's rear and his arms secure support under Taerahel's crooked knees. Taerahel shifted his hips, testing the shape inside him, and Zevran made a soft sound in his throat and twitched back against him, pressing his depth. The movement struck his tip, at the deepest point inside Taerahel, against a spark of sensation that sucked a hiss in through Taerahel's teeth, made his hips jut again much less deliberately this time. It was tender there, sensitive, maddening, making his skin heat and his breath come shorter. His cock pulsed fully hard again at once, from where it had flagged slightly in the course of Zevran's slow work, and he bit his lip and squirmed a bit harder around Zevran's cock, making both of them gasp and his own face flush hot with urgency. 

____

"Do it, please," he whispered, breath heavy, reaching for Zevran: one hand curling around his braced forearm, the other clutching around his lower back to draw at his hips. "I'm fine. I want it, I want more." 

____

Once again, Zevran scarcely seemed to have needed even that much encouragement. His upper body leaned in and forward, even as he slid his hips back, easing an inch or two out of the deepest parts of Taerahel; then his body arched slightly over Taerahel with the work of pushing back in, pressing deep and hard and setting off that dizzying spark of pleasure again. Taerahel tried his best to crest his own hips up to meet the thrust, and it was clumsy but enough to make it even better, to make the angle smoother and slide faster. He gasped a sound, and Zevran did it again, and then again, faster each time until it became a rhythm, a touch of warm friction building along the edges of where Taerahel gripped around him and teasing at that strongest, deepest place. Taerahel rocked with it and clung to Zevran and arched his head back, sweat trickling off one temple and mouth tremblingly open around his breath, dissolving into feeling and want. 

____

Fantasizing this, stroking himself alone in his tent, had been unable to conjure what it would be like to actually have it, of course: he had never been able to predict the aching of his pressed-folded knees, nor how deeply exciting he would find the thick, wet, frankly slightly grotesque sounds of Zevran moving in him. Now that he was here, the elemental realities of it were what was best about it, what flushed him with heat and hardness most. Zevran was warm and firm and slick in his hands and along the clutch of his legs, and they both smelled of sweat and sex between them. The blanket was a mess under him, stained and rucked, and sure to soon be more of one still. Zevran's face above him was both tense and soft with pleasure, a faint taut line between his brows and his mouth loose and parted. He cracked his eyes open even as Taerahel was watching him, and the look they gave him this time was not playful or smug or laughing or anything but heavy and darkly hungry. Zevran's gaze drank him in just as thoroughly as his had done Zevran, however wrecked and wanting Taerahel must have looked under him. And that was finally more than Taerahel could take without retrieving his hand from Zevran's arm, and wrapping it around his own cock. 

____

He groaned through his teeth with relief at his own touch, and his eyes fluttered closed briefly -- not that it mattered when he could still hear Zevran's breath heavy in his ears, and feel the building intensity with which Zevran thrusted against his braced hips. Still, Taerahel cracked his eyes open again a moment later, all the same, to watch him while he worked his own cock. After a moment, he managed to let go with the hand that was straining to grip Zevran's side, too, and fumbled up to tremblingly grip the back of Zevran's neck instead. 

____

"I like the way you look at me so much," he whispered, broken with breath as he moved with Zevran and moved his hand, bringing Zevran's eyes open from where they'd fallen shut to fix intently on him again. Feeling himself sliding close to his end again and pushing himself closer deliberately with the words -- with all the pleasures they summoned to mind, how Zevran's eyes had lingered on him as they spoke and followed him around the fire at camp, how they roamed over him now, avid on his chest and face. "Keep looking at me." 

____

"How could I ever look away?" Zevran panted back, so low and feelingly it was almost a growl, and the piston-steadiness of his hips drove suddenly faster, harder, slapping his hips up against Taerahel's with enough force to make a sound of skin on skin. 

____

Taerahel cried out, delirious and urgent, and jerked his hand on his cock in a helpless frenzy as it all sank into his skin, soaking him in lust. He held Zevran's gaze for one last desperate trembling moment and then could not keep from squeezing his eyes shut, his head twisting back, as he came again in a shuddering and bucking surge into Zevran's working hips. In spite of his accelerated recovery, the intensity of it was almost too much to bear so soon, rendering him soundless for long shivering moments until he could gulp his breaths and find a gasping groan in his chest. And then he was collapsing, limp and breathless and every inch of him tingling with the aftershocks of pleasure, against the last few frantic thrusts of Zevran's cock inside him before Zevran reached his own peak with a shocked-sounding grunt of breath. Taerahel at least managed to gather himself enough to open his eyes and watch, nothing of him moving but the heaves of his breathing and where Zevran's deep drive into his lower half lifted it from the blanket, as the force of the climax worked through Zevran's face: his brow knotting and then knotting deeper and then finally releasing, low sound and breath jolting between his lips as they parted wide and trembled together again. He was handsome, beautiful, his lovely eyes and the flicking curve of his tattoo and the full blossom of his lips. Taerahel felt that he could easily watch only him for years and not tire of it, the sight of him coming and shuddering down from the peak of coming, or just looking into Taerahel's own eyes and smiling. 

____

He had no plans to say so, though. It was already clear to him that such thoughts were probably best kept to himself. 

____

A moment later, anyway, Zevran was letting out a wearier and heartfelt groan, and beginning to lean back from his press over Taerahel with extremely careful slowness. The movement eased his softening cock out of Taerahel as he went, his hand dropping to steady the end of the process, and when at last it had fallen entirely free Taerahel heaved an unsteady breath of mingled relief and regret. Although he had never known the sensation before, he had no trouble being certain that how he felt was thoroughly fucked, the inside of him tired and hollow and well-used, his cock and bollocks entirely spent and satisfied. He found himself now as tired as Zevran had said he looked, and more so. He felt he could sleep for a week. 

____

First, though, he reached blindly for where Zevran had withdrawn, squinting bruised-feeling eyes up at him with a tiny smile Zevran came willingly into his hands, and settled half-over him, kissing him and stroking his chest and side and arm in a long aimless trail. When he drew back from the kiss, it was only to bury a chuckle against the side of Taerahel's neck. 

____

"I trust this was a satisfactory introduction?" he murmured into the skin there. Taerahel could only laugh weakly, drawing stray hair back from Zevran's temple, enjoying his warmth and the tickle of his lips.. 

____

"I can't imagine a better one," he admitted, and sought out Zevran's mouth with his until he could capture it in a lazy kiss, lingering near as he added softly, "Thank you." 

____

"I assure you that the pleasure was all mine." Zevran's grin stayed so close to his own lips he simply had to kiss it again, and then at some leisure Zevran drew back and pushed himself up, to half-crawl across the tent and fumble through its contents. He returned to sit over Taerahel with a skin of water, a cake of soap, a clean rag, and set about cleaning them both up with Taerahel's gradual, clumsy help. There was something both decadent and safe about Zevran gently cleaning his belly and between his thighs, even beyond the touch on still-tingling skin that made him shiver. Funny, amid all his fixation on betrayal of late, to take such pleasure in the rare act of trusting someone else to care for him. Especially someone whose first action on Taerahel's meeting him had been to turn traitor -- but from someone else toward him. That certainly did change his perspective on the issue. 

____

When they were acceptably clean, Taerahel set blurry-eyed about laying out his bedroll while Zevran put aside the things he had used. The fouled blanket Taerahel kicked into a sad little heap in the corner of the tent, well away from the rest. "I'll... burn that, later," he said in the midst of an enormous yawn into the back of his hand, as he settled himself into the blankets. Zevran laughed, from somewhere beyond and above him. 

____

"Yes, such valiant service deserves to be honored with a funeral pyre." That interrupted Taerahel at the end of his yawn to set him off laughing, and when he cracked open his eyes to smile up at Zevran he found Zevran smling back where he sat above him, reaching out to brush Taerahel's lips with the tips of his fingers. "You have a very sweet smile, you know. Has no one ever told you so either?" 

____

Taerahel caught Zevran's hand in his, eyes barely open. "No," he said, hearing the blurriness at the edges of his own voice. "But no one's ever made me smile as much as you do." Zevran might have lapsed into another short silence at that, but Taerahel didn't give him time for it to linger. "Stay? Please. Sleep here tonight." 

____

It seemed to him that Zevran hesitated even more noticeably at that, but he was very drowsy by now and was never entirely sure. And eventually Zevran did laugh softly and move closer, tucking under his blanket beside him. Taerahel pressed close to his chest, pleased, and Zevran's arm wrapped obligingly around his shoulders. 

____

_As persuasive as you are, you should be making better demands,_ he thought Zevran might have also murmured, into the muss of his hair; but by then he was already sliding fast into sleep, and he couldn't be sure he hadn't imagined it. Or, indeed, if he hadn't, of what exactly Zevran might have meant. 

____

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "Stars" by The xx.
> 
> (It doesn't really come up, but as a point of interest, Taerahel Surana is the Hero of Ferelden in the continuity of [The Unexpected](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24375898).)


End file.
